The text-only version of FFShrine forums still works fine. So I went to the Video Game Music Download Links section:

./f-72.html

And downloaded all the threads as HTML files using the Chrome extension DownThemAll! There are a total of 29,963 threads, and I was able to download all except 18 threads, so 29,945 in total. A few very important threads couldn't be downloaded, like "The New Lossless Video Game Soundtrack Thread (v3)".

You can download the archive from here:
https://mega.nz/#!sZhiUIZJ!56B5Hita2aOlrlnsK1oO80UWSQSDXv8nsQetAZtc6VY

These files probably aren't all that usable as is. But maybe someone is able to create a searchable system out of them, in case FFShrine ends for good. So I'm posting this here, just in case it will be of use at some point.

Thanks for this, will be a back up source for me.

Thank you very much, op. These links are actually very useful as you can still search for terms and find threads that match. The only issue is, of course, links being dead, but it's a very serviceable backup of the database.

Thank you for doing this! This will be extremely useful to have if/when FFShrine disappears. Based on a quick search, I found a program called FileSeek ( https://www.fileseek.ca/Download/ ) that allows you to search through all the files pretty quickly. The free version is good enough it seems. Just make sure you set it to "Match query to entire file" in Advanced settings, or else it will search through each file line by line which is pretty slow. On an SSD it can search through all the files in a few seconds. Also, like Melalo said, it seems like the Windows search function works even better, as long as indexing is enabled. Although it might take a little while for Windows to finish indexing all of the files.

Thank you!
It'd be great if someone could go to the trouble of making an archive for the Film Music and Anime Music sections too.

Thank you!
It'd be great if someone could go to the trouble of making an archive for the Film Music and Anime Music sections too.

It's actually very easy with the method OP outlined, but I'd be concerned about sharing it here: there's bound to be banned content from before the bans were in place, e.g. Varese scores. I started on a rip of the film board yesterday but stopped as it was killing my PC and I didn't want to catch a ban for sharing it, lol. It's about 44,000 threads IIRC. Might just be a better idea to only share the pages from after the most recent ban.

Yeah, I hadn't considered that. Anyway the process is much more straightforward than I'd thought so I'll give it a shot myself.

The text-only version of FFShrine forums still works fine.

~

A few very important threads couldn't be downloaded, like "The New Lossless Video Game Soundtrack Thread (v3)".

When you view the text-only version, look at the top-right of the screen and click on the linked named "PDA". It's a version of the text-only site with a couple more bells and whistles, and it seems to be more up-to-date than the regular text-only site. I found the v3 thread link there, completely up to date with the newest posts and access to any text placed behind spoilers. Try crawling the site with the download extension from there.

If some of us are willing to pitch in and get new secure forums going with SSL and normal forums etc ... I will be willing to help out with maintenance and stuff :)

Thank you. I really appreciate it.

Happy to throw in my support and assistance as well, if it's needed. FFShrine is a daily haunt of mine, and the stuff I have learned here from the audiophiles - my gods, their brains are glorious! It'd be tragic to lose such an interesting place full of such terrific and big minds.

Cheers,

-S

Nicely done!
I quite concerned as well that one day we won't be able to access this forum at all.

How do you go about archieving threads?
Say I'd like to make a backup of specific threads, is there an easy way to do this?

Nicely done!
I quite concerned as well that one day we won't be able to access this forum at all.

How do you go about archieving threads?
Say I'd like to make a backup of specific threads, is there an easy way to do this?

Use DownThemAll as described in the op. You can download all open threads.